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If you look at all USPTO trademark filings during 2011, you find 130.000 different "words". 90 percent of these words are used less than 5 times, like QUORA and SINGER. But the top 10 percent are used as many as 2000 times, like LIFE and HEALTH.

If you are thinking of a new name for a business or trademark, you should probably avoid all these words. They are so common that they are very weak as trademark components.

The list has few surprises so we compared it with 2006 and found only two new, very common trademark words. Can you guess which ones? (Answer at bottom of blog post) We also compared this list with a similar list for EU trademarks (CTM/OHIM), but found no major differences.

We have eliminated the most common "stop words" like  THE, IS, AT, YOU, AND etc, and some company attributes like INC, COMPANY and GROUP. The top 100 trademark words 2011:

The two new words on the list of fop 100 trademark words 2011, when compared to 2006, is number 61 and 94. Not very surprising.

Markify now releases the world's first comprehensive trademark search API. It's fast and free and it covers the US and the EU.

We have debated internally quite a bit about how much you can and should cannibalize on your own business. Not an easy discussion.

A lot of the big on-line companies have very restricted APIs. After reading this very good blog post about APIs, we decided to go the other way.

So what do you get from the Markify trademark search API?

1. The world's most accurate trademark search, finding 99% of confusingly similar trademarks.
2. Results in similarity order. No one else does this.
3. Daily updated trademark data from the USPTO and from the large pan-European database OHIM/CTM
4. Fast and free. Average response times are less than 0.9 seconds.

Who do we think should be interested?

• Domain name registrars - Let your users do a fast trademark search to make sure they can use the domain name for their new business. We believe this will sell more domains to business oriented users. How? The level of trust and service will result in more buys than the occasional possible trademark conflict.
• Law firms - Become more time and cost efficient towards your trademark search/clearance clients.
• Legal and docketing software companies - You already have a great software and a client base. So now you can easily integrate the world's most accurate trademark search for USPTO and OHIM/CTM.
• Developers - You have an idea of a mash-up or a new way to use the trademark search engine? We will love to hear about it.

You find instructions, rules and documentation for the trademark search API here

Don't hesitate to contact us and we'll try to help you the best we can. And we love feedback! Send me a mail at my first name followed by our domain name.

In an interview with ArcticStartup I was asked to come up with my best tips to start-ups regarding trademark and their new business name:

1. Choose a name that can be trademarked.

Why? You will avoid conflicts, enable expansion and sleep better. There are two basic requirements on your new trademark:

a) It should not be generic in your business area. The name "CoolApps" is generic if you're going to deliver a new marketplace for apps.

b) No one else should be using a "confusingly similar" trademark in your potential markets. Start your search at markify.com for confusingly similar marks. Avoid all similar marks that are in your line of business. If you are uncertain, contact a trademark attorney.

2. Buy all relevant domain names.

a) For most international start-ups that means a .com. Don't only look for available domain names. Even if the domain name is taken, it often is for sale. Average prices for domain names at auctions are $500

b) Buy 5-10 typos.

c) Buy at least 5-10 country extensions (ccTLDs). Choose the biggest markets where you think you may expand.

3. Register the trademark in your primary market.

In Europe choose the Pan-European CTM trademark, which covers 27 EU countries for a fee of 850 Euros.

In the US a USPTO trademark costs $325.

4. Watch and protect your trademark.

If there is a new confusingly similar application you should act upon it. So sign up for a free trademark watch at Markify.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you think I can help

When we launched Markify a year ago we had been building our trademark similarity algorithm for more than two years. Why did it take so long? The simple answer is that our ambition was to build the world's best trademark search engine.

The more complex answer is that I was convinced that to launch with an inferior product would not give us a real test of Markify. It would not test if we had a "minimum viable product", to speak Eric Ries language.

But it was not an easy decision. We had a lot of discussion in the team on when to launch, and the term "good enough" was always challenging "the world's best trademark search engine".

So the feeling  when we finally launched in December 2010 was one of great relief and anticipation.  Since then everything has gone much faster, our learning curve has accelerated and we are having so much more fun!

Some of Markify's highlights 2011:

• Reaching more than 100.000 users every month, and rising, that are doing comprehensive trademark and domain name searches.
• Reaching 99% accuracy with our trademark search algorithm.
• Becoming number 1 in the US benchmark of trademark search services.
• Getting that amazing response from so many trademark attorneys at the INTA meeting in San Francisco in May.
• Lauch of the world's first free comprehensive trademark watch, together with the Pro watch for trademark attorneys.

What has been most challenging 2011?

I think Steve Blank put it best: "A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model."

We have been fortunate to have very good investors in the Nordic VC firm CNCP. But VC money is NOT a business model, even if you are sometimes lead to believe that.

To balance business development and product development. That has been and will be our greatest challenge going forward.

When Markify now moves into 2012, I can promise you some soon-to-come exciting new releases. And I believe these will have the right mix of a great product and a good business opportunity - for both you and us.

Last week there was an interesting seminar in Stockholm about the new top level domains (gTLDs) that will be open to application early 2012. Participating were representatives from all sides: registrars, registries, ICANN, trademark lawyers, brand owners and domainers.

I got to talk to some of them and here are my thoughts on how big brand and trademark owners will and should act. (We at Markify have no financial interest in the new gtlds.)

Three categories of gTLDs

First a bit of background:

From January 2012 anyone can buy their own tld, http://newgtlds.icann.org/ The fee for just buying the tld will be $185.000 plus $25.000/year. The cost for marketing your new tld will of course be much higher.

The three main categories that will apply for a new tld seems to be:

1. Geographies/Communities: .nyc, .moscow, .gay
2. Generic words: .bank, .poker, .shop
3. Brands: .facebook, .hitachi, .canon

Number 1. Geographies and number 2. Generic words will both try to sell domain names in one way or another.  But number 3. Brands is a very different category, with a very different agenda. What will they do and why?

The one big reason to buy a tld for a trademark owner

Why should a brand owner even consider buying a new gtld? The core sales pitch you can hear focus on two aspects:

• A short and attractive url – .SQUARE instead of SQUAREUP.COM
• New marketing possibilities – DRIVE.BMW instead of DRIVE.BMW.COM

I think most owners of big brands will think: “Why bother? I don’t need that. I already have the url I want and I’d rather spend that money on something else.”

True, but my guess is that they will reconsider and actually try to buy the new tld. Why? For one big reason:

You don’t want anyone else using your brand as a top level domain.

Some trademark holders, with really famous, well-known trademarks, will be able to stop others from getting the tld. But most trademark owners will not be able to stop an application, because they don’t have all the trademark rights (all classes, all markets). The only certain way to stop it will be to buy the tld yourself.

What you should do: 3 cases

In short: If you can afford it - both the fee and the future marketing costs - you should buy your own tld. But for a couple of different reasons.

Case 1 - “Facebook”
You own the relevant .com and there are no other identical big brands competing for the new tld.

To-do: Buy the new tld primarily for defensive reasons. You don’t want anyone else to own it.

Case 2 - “Apple”
You own the relevant .com (like Apple Inc does) but there are other identical brands (like Apple Records) competing for the new tld.

To-do: Buy the new tld primarily for defensive reasons. You don’t want anyone else to own it and in the long term there might be advantages using it.

Case 3 - “SAS”
You don’t own the relevant .com, like Square, SAS (the airline), Next (many) etc. This group is highly motivated and they are the dream clients of the "helping-you-get-the-tld-you-deserve" industry.

To-do: Try to buy the new tld to get an attractive url. And be prepared to invest heavily in marketing your new domain.

The .com vs new gtlds

For the foreseeable future, 3-5 years, I believe the .com will continue to be the prime real-estate online. The new top level domains will form a new, second rate domain class, just below the .com domain.

Why? Because most big brands, that already have the .com, will not bother to invest huge amounts in teaching people a new url. Even if the url is shorter, it still is a change of address. And as long as the big brands stay on the .com with their main sites, it will continue to be the prime address.

The most basic reason to do a comprehensive trademark search is to avoid trouble.

When you start a new business or a new brand you want to be completely sure that you will not have to change that name later. Changing business name or brand 12 months or more after launch is often a disaster.

To stay out of trouble you have to avoid what the law calls likelihood of confusion. You can read on the USPTO's (The US Patent and Trademark Office) website: "A complete search is one that will uncover all similar marks, not just those that are identical." http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/process/search/

So you have to answer the question: Are there other similar trademarks, being used for similar or related goods or services?

To answer that question you should do a free comprehensive search at Markify.com (there are other trademark search engines but no one nearly as accurate that is also free, see report).

1. Choose you primary market: US or Europe.
2. Limit your search to 1-3 relevant classes (business categories)
3. Go through the result list and make sure that none of the marks is both:
   • Too similar and
   • Do similar things

Depending on your result list, this can be a bit tricky, learn more. It’s often worth a good nights sleep to get a professional opinion from a trademark attorney.

Wow! Markify is ranked number 1 in a study of trademark search services. In the report by ipPerformance you can read: "On average, most of the vendors had very similar results with the exception of Markify, where the results were significantly superior."

"Overall, we found that Markify provides the most impressive find rate. This result was significantly better (99.7%) than the other tools in the test."

You can download the full report at ipPerformance Group or directly right here.

This is of course a huge recognition of our work with the core similarity technology. Today we are proud and happy!

The Markify exposition at the INTA Annual Meeting in San Francisco in May was a huge success. And in several ways:

1. Business leads: We had so many visitors to our booth that the three of us didn't always have time to take care of everyone. The number of new potential clients is fantastic.
2. User input: The input from trademark lawyers from all over the world was simply outstanding. They told me all we need know when we now continue to develop Markify.
3. Partnerships: Industry leaders in various positions approached us to discuss cooperation. Very exciting opportunities.
4. Buzz: The buzz we generated in the trademark community is still echoing in our inboxes.

How did we do it? I think the trademark lawyer at one of the big cola drink companies summarized it well: "You had a great way of getting me into the booth (Win an iPad 2). Then you showed me a great product. Well done!"

We celebrate our first INTA Annual Meeting with giving away an iPad 2 to one lucky attendee. Enter the free trial of our new full watch services (no strings attached) and you may be the winner! Come by our booth 124 to get the promotion code. The winner will be announced on Tuesday the 17th at 3.15pm in our booth.

When we took the decision of exhibiting at the INTA Annual Meeting we understood it would mean a lot of extra work for us. The first time you do something it is always difficult and take a lot of time. Here are the six big areas I think are important for a successful exposition:

1. Set the overall target for our participation. Why are we exhibiting? With what offer? To who? Concept?
2. Produce the graphics and order all exposition gear.
3. Get the right personnel
4. Travel and hotel arrangements
5. Book the right meetings
6. Bring all gear to the booth, set it up, have fun and smile

Soon I will know what I have missed . . . Showtime

Some call a “No” the next best thing to a “Yes” when you are fundraising. Part cliché, part true, in my opinion. Because a “No” is only valuable if you understand it. Otherwise it can be a huge time waster. And getting a clear and fast “No” from angels and VC’s is not always that easy.

Before we got a firm “Yes” we got our share of “No’s”. Here is my personal guide to the land of “No” when you are raising seed capital.

I have found basically five kinds of “No’s” - and I have come to truly respect two of them
and found ways to deal with the others:

1. The “No” in advance. This kind of “No” you get on angels’ and VC’s websites, in interviews and other sources like Quora and Formspring. Here are some examples:

• “We never invest outside the US”
• “We only invest in B2C”
• “We have never invested in a company which hasn’t been referred to us by someone we trust.”

This is their strategy, and that must be their call. These people saved me a lot of time by stating their preferences. I respect that and will not bother them with my pitch if it doesn’t fit their criteria.

2. The silent “No”. At their website they encourage you to send your business plan. Then you  never hear from them. There is a fundamental communication problem here:

• The angel/VC thinks that he is sending the signal: “We are flooded by deals and actually don’t have time to answer all, even if we would like to”.
• But the entrepreneur might think that the signal is: “Your idea/team/plan is so bad that it is not even worth an answer”.

Waste of time for the entrepreneur and bad marketing for the angel/VC.

3. The clear and fast “No”. The angel/VC has looked at your start-up, maybe met you and quickly gives their reason for saying no. This will save you a lot of time and sometimes you get valuable input from their answer. Both parties build respect and network.

4. The slow “No”. It can sound like this: “This looks very interesting but we would like to see this, this, this and that.” When you are raising seed capital you just don’t have the time or resources to do too much else than focus on your core development. Unfortunately not all investors understand and respect this. To understand when you are wasting your time is key in this process.

5. The “Yes” that is really a “No”. It can sound like: “Yes, we are very interested, but not right now because we are so busy.Can you come back in two months?” Keep you hopes down when you start hearing the phrase “not right now”.

So here is an appell to all angels and VC’s, who I know really care for entrepreneurs and start-ups:
A. State selection criteria - On your website or wherever a search engine can find it, state your true first selection criteria,  typically: Location, Sectors, Referrals, Stages, or whatever selection model you are using. This will save you and the entrepreneur lots of time.
B. Deliver your “No” answers clear and fast - It will give you respect in the entrepreneur community and bring you valuable business in the long run.

Most advice when it comes to raising seed capital focuses on the pitch, the slides and the business plan. What to say and how to say it.

But fundraising is not only a pitch - it’s also a process.

"Secret" 1: Raising seed capital is a sales process.

Accept that raising capital is a sales process. You are selling yourself, the team, your idea, your vision, business concept and prototype. You are selling your stock in return for cash, network and advice. You are selling an option to future value. In short: You are selling.

If you approach it as a sales process - what are the consequences?

Sales is to an extent a numbers game. You should use the classic sales funnel when you are about to start raising seed capital: The more good "prospects" (potential investors) you put into the funnel, the more "sales" (investments) you get out in the other end.

1. The cold prospect list. This is the key to success. Without it your reach will be too limited and you won’t get to dance with the investor of your dream.
   • At the top you put your dream investors. Then you add another 20 angel or VC’s. Don’t write only their company names. You will have to identify the individual person and his or her email address.
   • Craft and send the pitch email to the first ten. In Europe most of the potential angels and VC’s will read your email even if you are not referred.
   • Don’t bother calling them before they have read your email.
2. Existing contacts. Your existing contacts are your best shots, but they are probably very limited in the angel and VC community. So make the most out of these contacts:
   • Walk through your list of contacts and ask yourself: “Who does he/she know in the angel/VC community?” (LinkedIn if possible)
   • Take meetings with your contacts even when you think the chance is small that they can help you.
3. Generate new contacts. Network as much as you can and as early as possible to gain more contacts.
   • Attend start-up contests, conferences, international and local events for entrepreneurs.
   • Ask every one you meet and talk to: “Who do you think I should talk to? Can you refer me?”
   • With this sales approach you add a quantity focus, which I believe is important at least in Europe where the VC and angel market is less mature than in the US.

If this is your first professional "sales tour", there are another two positive consequences of regarding  fundraising as a sales process:

• You demystify the topic. A lot of entrepreneurs get scared by the fundraising; they don’t think they understand it and they see it as a major obstacle. But selling is easier to relate to and feel confident about.
• You are about to get a crash course in high level sales. Fundraising takes a lot of time, so instead of “wasting” the time, look at it as some serious sales training.

Can a first time entrepreneur really give any advice regarding fundraising? Well, that’s just it: I believe raising money the first time is a very different experience than doing it a second time. The second time you have your own experience, you have a track record and you have more contacts. The first time you usually don’t have much. Since we just succeeded with our first round of financing, I thought I’d share some of my experiences.

There is so much good advice out there so instead of repeating what others have said much better, I will just point you to some very good sources:

Chris Dixon http://cdixon.org/contents/,
Fred Wilson http://www.avc.com/a_vc/archives.html
Steve Blank http://steveblank.com/.
Great link collection: http://tappen.posterous.com/nice-summary-stanleytang-256-must-read-conten#comment
And of course a lot of great answers on Quora.com

Why should you do a trademark registration?

A registered trademark is basically a cheap insurance against conflicts - trademark infringement. There are two types of conflicts you want to stay out of:

Conflict type 1 - Copycats steal your name.

• Without a trademark registration you will have a hard time fighting off the copycats. Having competition is diffcult enough, but when they start stealing your customers by using a similar name, you have a damaging sitiuation.
• Even if it is unusual, you can build a strong trademark without doing a registration. If you have built recognition for your brand name in a market, you have actually established a trademark without registering it. But the hard thing is proving it, and being prepared to do it in court. A registration will from day one give you proof that you were first.

Conflict type 2 - You are the copycat, most often without knowing it.

• You don’t want to get a letter from lawyer saying you will have to change name and pay for damages because you are too similar to an already registered trademark. Trademark search followed by a trademark registration is the best way to avoid this kind of trademark infringement.

For most businesses with any ambition, a trademark registration is a cheap way to stay out of conflicts. Put another way: You are securing the value you are creating in your business.

When can you skip a trademark registration?

You may save the trademark registration fee, if you agree to any of the following two statements:

A. It really doesn't matter that somebody starts using the same or a similar name.

• This is the often the case when you plan to use a very generic word or phrase as your business name/domain name - like Fund.com or CowboyHatsStore.com. The name is impossible to trademark and no one can claim that it is confusingly similar to their registered trademark.
• A good generic domain name can help in bringing in a lot of customers. But the risk that is often neglected here is that a competitor starts doing business with a very similar name/domain name, "stealing" or deceiving your customers. Examples:
• - Fund.com may loose some customers to Funds.com - Here both parties are probably well aware of the risks.
• - CowboyHatsStore.com will have to live close to CowboyHats.com in the web search results.
• - AutoRepair.com taking customers from AutoRepairs.com - This kind of situation can of course be very damaging.

B. It really doesn't matter that you might have to change your name in the future.

• Very few businesses would say that they are willing to take this risk. But the fact is that many businesses do, often without being aware of it. Sure, most of them are lucky and don’t end up in conflict. But many thousands of them get that letter that will force them to change name - which is a time and money consuming nightmare.

So, even if you’re going to skip a trademark registration, you should still do a trademark search and make sure there are no confusingly similar trademarks out there, in your markets, doing something similar.

Today Markify is launching the world’s first free search and watch for similar trademarks. Our vision is to make it easier for entrepreneurs and brand name creators to avoid conflict and protect their trademarks and domain names.

With Markify you can quickly and easily check any name to see if anybody is already operating under a similar trademark - both in the US (USPTO data) and in Europe (CTM data). So you can avoid them in your search for a new domain name or trademark. Avoid what the law calls "likelihood of confusion". Otherwise you might have to change your name later. A risk no business should take.

This first blog post cover the story on why and how we built this new kind of trademark search that is both fast, accurate and free.

The problem

Entrepreneurs and brand name creators know how hard it is to create a new, good name. The crowded domain name space has made it even more difficult. And when you have created a name and you think you can secure the domain name, there is still one big obstacle left:

Are there any similar trademarks out there, doing anything related to your business?

To answer that question you have to spend at least $500 on an availability search for similar trademarks, and that is for checking just one name, in one market. And it takes 48 hours to get the result, which is of course way to long in an intense name creating session.

So that was the problem: Trademark search has been slow, difficult and expensive.

The solution

After being involved in professional name processes for ten years I decided to try to change this.  I wanted to make trademark search easy, accurate, fast and free. So entrepreneurs and brand name creators  easily could check possible names for similar trademarks and domain name availability immediately.

I knew from the start that it was not going to be easy, that we would have to be a team with some very specific competencies.

As it happens, my father-in-law, Benny Brodda, is a professor emeritus in computational linguistics (Stockholm University), and he is a pioneer in the trademark search field. He built one of the first software programs for finding similar trademarks and sold his successful trademark search company in the 90’s. Benny has 30 years of experience and is of course a very valuable advisor.

The rest of us in the team are a mix of software engineers, linguists and trademark experts. We spend most of our time on two things: the algorithm work and creating a user experience that reduces the built in complexity.  And we all share a passion for business names - trademarks or domain names.

Together we have built a new trademark search that is easy, accurate, fast and free.

The core: Accurate name similarity

Every year there are many thousand examples of trademark applications that didn’t survive because they were too similar to a registered trademark. Here are some of them:

The entrepreneurs and brand name creators behind these and many thousand other applications didn’t just loose the registration fee. They all lost a lot of valuable time and some of them had to pull back a launch at great costs. Then they had to start a new name process - if they were still up to it . . .

But is it really that hard, to determine if two names are similar or not?

If you want to produce a very accurate search result, one that finds most potential “killers” (we call them that) without a lot of “noise”, then it is very hard. From the start we knew that if we were going to be useful to entrepreneurs, we couldn’t deliver search results with too much noise.

It took us in the team 1,5 year to build the core technology, the similarity algorithm. Endless hours spent on statistical tests and different tweaks. A long time but we think it paid off.

We think our search results are extremely accurate. We can today find the similar trademarks with much less noise than any other trademark search service we have seen. And we are constantly tuning and improving the similarity algorithm, so any feedback from you is very valuable to us.

Benoit Fallenius

Founder, CEO

Follow on twitter: benoitfallenius